Pierre Samuel du Pont (1739-1817) was a noted French Physiocrat and economic advisor to Jacques Necker and King Louis XXVI.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution he and his family emigrated to the United States where his son Eleuthère Irénée
du Pont established the gun powder manufacturer E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The collection consists primarily of correspondence
and special papers documenting his service during the Necker ministry and the establishment of the DuPont Company. Also included
are the papers of his second wife Françoise Poivre (1748-1841).

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours was born in Paris on December 14, 1739. He was apprenticed as a watchmaker, but during the
early 1760s he began to study and write on economic matters, and in 1767 coined the term Physiocracy, which means the rule
of nature, to describe the complex doctrine of François Quesnay, which is now recognized as the first modern school of economics.

In July 1774, the family departed for Poland, where du Pont was to serve the Polish monarch in various capacities, including
that of honorary councilor. He was shortly recalled to France, however, and commissioned as Inspecteur Général du Commerce,
a position he held until its abolition in 1788. During the late 1770s he was an economic advisor to Jacques Necker, and in
the early 1780s he was involved in the negotiations which led to the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty of 1786. In 1786 he was
appointed Counseiller d'Etat by Louis XVI, and the next year he served as secretary of the first Assemblée des Notables convened
at Versailles. He also served as a member of the Assemblée Nationale Constituante (1789-1791), where he allied himself with
the moderate Girondist faction. After Robespierre took power, du Pont was arrested in July 1794, but he escaped the guillotine
upon Robespierre's fall at the end of the month. In 1795 he was chosen as a member of the Counseil des Anciens. Following
the Coup d'état of September 4, 1795, he was again arrested and held for one night.

The du Ponts began to explore the possibility of emigration to the United States. On January 3, 1800, accompanied by his sons,
Victor and Eleuthère Irénée, he arrived in America. Du Pont de Nemours and his sons established the commission house of Du
Pont de Nemours, Pere et Fils & Cie. in New York.

Du Pont de Nemours and his wife returned to France in 1802, and he held various government posts under Napoleon. In 1814 he
became a member of the provisional government which deposed Napoleon and exiled him to Elba. Upon Napoleon's return, du Pont
de Nemours again fled to America, where he died at the home of his son, Eleuthère Irénée in Delaware on August 7, 1817.

This series primarily consists of letters from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours to his son, Eleuthère. They document Victor
du Pont's financial failure, du Pont de Nemours' services in various French governmental posts, difficulties with powder company
shareholders, Bonaparte's animosity, publication of the Turgot papers, and financial troubles with Mme. Bureaux de Pusy. Letters
addressed to Mme. Lavoisier refer to her mortgage on Bois-desfosses, the death of her estranged second husband, Count Rumford,
and contemporary French politics and society. Letters to son, Victor, mention Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours' writings for
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Comte de Moustier. Other corresponence refers to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours
print shop in Paris, his relationship with Lavoisier, his return to Paris in 1795, his desire to resume political activity,
the evolution of the firm of Du Pont de Nemours, Père et Fils & Cie., and the du Pont de Nemours family's arrival in America.

This series describes the evolution of the Du Pont firms from Du Pont de Nemours, Père et Fils & Cie. to E.I. du Pont de Nemours
& Company, including the family's early plans to establish a business in America; agreements; lists of stockholders; prospectuses;
technical notes on the manufacture of gunpowder; and a notice on the departure of the family to America in 1799. Also included
are Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours' writings on steamboats, banking, agriculture and manufacturing, and two memoirs by Benjamin
Franklin in French on the origins and prospects of the American Revolution.

Decree of the French Provisional Government naming the
Moniteur its official newspaper, signed by du Pont de Nemours as Secretary-General and authorizing appointment of François Sauvo as
editor, 1814;
copy

Floor plan proposed by Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours for his own house on the Brandywine at Eleutherian Mills, in Delaware, undated

3

Order authorizing Claude Philippe Edouard, Baron Mounier (Intendant des Bàtiments de la Couronne), to inventory the silver,
porcelain, etc., at the Tuileries, both issued by Du Pont de Nemours as secretary of the Gouvernement Provisoire, 1814 April 10

This series is composed of, with the exception of a small memorandum, eight letters written chiefly to her stepchildren and
granddaughters Victorine and Evelina in the United States. Of particular interest are the death of Ferdinand Bauduy (1814),
the death of her own husband (1817), and her concern for her stepchildren after the explosion at the powder mills in 1818.